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What are you reading (March 2009)
- Thread starter mr stroke
- Start date
Started and finished the Watchmen for the first time today. Going to need some time to let it sink in. It was certainly quite the tale everyone makes it out to be, but I'm afraid I've simply experienced too many of the fresh ideas that made it so revolutionary at its time in other tales before reading it to see it as, well, revolutionary today. (Incidentally, I went reading reviews of the movie right after finishing the novel and there one that hit on this perfectly. Taken verbatim from the review
That said, I still found it immensely entertaining and thought provoking. (Obviously- I just spent the past few hours reading through the whole thing in one sitting. :lol ) Looking forward to seeing Snyder's take on it.
Eye for Film said:
That said, I still found it immensely entertaining and thought provoking. (Obviously- I just spent the past few hours reading through the whole thing in one sitting. :lol ) Looking forward to seeing Snyder's take on it.
Cosmic Bus
pristine morning snow
Stephen Prince's Savage Cinema and Jean Améry's On Suicide.
RevenantKioku
PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS oh god i am drowning in them
Benjillion said:
SundaySounds
Banned
Hellshadow said:
We need more Dragonlance love on this board.
Dude, just pick a novel by Margaret Weis. I've read them all.
Almost
Witchfinder General
punched Wheelchair Mike
ItAintEasyBeinCheesy
it's 4th of July in my asshole
Enoch said:Slowly working my way through this gigantic book, about halfway through it.
I've previously only read an abridged version and the Penguin Classics version is truly great. Sure the detail he that Dumas goes into is ridiculous at times but it's a phenomenal story.
Hahaha Dumb Ass........... Shaw Shank was awesome movie.
Awesomes Book, almost done the first then onto the other 2.
Enoch said:Slowly working my way through this gigantic book, about halfway through it.
I've previously only read an abridged version and the Penguin Classics version is truly great. Sure the detail he that Dumas goes into is ridiculous at times but it's a phenomenal story.
Used to be my favorite book when I was a kid (the same time Thomas Edison was my hero). Now I am embarrassed for both.
GrotesqueBeauty
Banned
Just finished:
Next up:
Next up:
I need book recommendations!
I've been meaning to read a new book lately, I need some recommendations! I'm not a big reader what with music being the main love of my life and a huge movie backlog, all that coupled with work, school and the gym I find it hard to pick up a book.
What I want is a book that would be easy to follow (not take too much deep thinking to "get it") and something that is entertaining throughout while leaving me with a feeling that it will change my life on epic proportions (if that makes sense). I want something profound, something that'll make me feel good in a coming of age sort of way.
Soooooo with that in mind, any recommendations you guys got for me?
I've been meaning to read a new book lately, I need some recommendations! I'm not a big reader what with music being the main love of my life and a huge movie backlog, all that coupled with work, school and the gym I find it hard to pick up a book.
What I want is a book that would be easy to follow (not take too much deep thinking to "get it") and something that is entertaining throughout while leaving me with a feeling that it will change my life on epic proportions (if that makes sense). I want something profound, something that'll make me feel good in a coming of age sort of way.
Soooooo with that in mind, any recommendations you guys got for me?
PuppetSlave
Member
Been reading John Connoly lately. But man... Whats with all the religion in his books all of a sudden...
Really turning me off. I really like a killing kind so I bought several others. Reading Dark angel and without spoiling too much.
Have not finished the book but I think this will be my last Connoly book.
Hitman, your demands are pretty high for a book to be honest :lol
I would hit the classics. Only the masters can do "easy to read and yet profound" really well. Steinbeck, Hemingway , etc.
Really turning me off. I really like a killing kind so I bought several others. Reading Dark angel and without spoiling too much.
All of the sudden the main character apparently is a fallen angel and battles other bad angels/demons... His books used to be crime. Wtf
Have not finished the book but I think this will be my last Connoly book.
Hitman, your demands are pretty high for a book to be honest :lol
I would hit the classics. Only the masters can do "easy to read and yet profound" really well. Steinbeck, Hemingway , etc.
GrotesqueBeauty
Banned
Hitman said:
crowphoenix
Banned
Finished Pratchett's "Fifth Elephant" Yesterday for the third time, and now I'm moving on to
I picked it up mostly due to the ravings of Gaffers, so I'm hoping to enjoy it. I'm only about 10 pages in, but I'm liking the writing style.
I picked it up mostly due to the ravings of Gaffers, so I'm hoping to enjoy it. I'm only about 10 pages in, but I'm liking the writing style.
D
Deleted member 1235
Unconfirmed Member
because of this thread I just bought 'infinite jest' 'Fool' and the zombie Z one which picture I can't see now Im in the reply box.
I don't know anything about any of these novels and yes I bought them based on their covers.
I don't know anything about any of these novels and yes I bought them based on their covers.
Musashi Wins!
FLAWLESS VICTOLY!
catfish said:
:lol excellent. Well...there's some variety there.
Regarding Axis:
That's disappointing to hear. I adored Spin and recently picked up a copy of Axis that I haven't gotten around to just yet. Now I'm wondering if I should put it on the back burner for a bit longer.
I'm in a similar boat. For what it's worth, To Your Scattered Bodies Go, the first of his Riverworld novels, won the 1972 Hugo for best novel.
Meanwhile, I'm currently about halfway through Master and Commander, the first volume of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series, which chronicles life in the British navy during the Napoleonic era. This is my second go at the book, having gotten about this far previously before accidentally leaving my copy in a friend's car during a road trip and not seeing him again for a year and a half. Fortunately, I recently re-watched the movie Master and Commander and was encouraged to give the series another go.
A friend of mine who's a huge fan has assured me that, after the first couple of books, I'll have the hang of the nautical jargon being used. This is reassuring, as I occasionally glimpse at the illustration in the front identifying the sails of a ship and it still doesn't really help me keep up. That said, I'm thoroughly enjoying the book so far, even if I tend to reduce some passages of the book to "sailors do naval stuff". The characters of Aubrey and Maturin are terrific, the period detail (and, let me tell you, there's a lot of detail) is fascinating, and the depictions of ship to ship combat are thrilling. While I should probably reserve judgment until I'm finished, I'm already looking forward to having many more novels in the series to enjoy after this one.
Having stumbled across a copy at the local university library and stared at it in astonishment, I simply had to track down a copy of Extreme Cavnas: Hand Painted Movie Posters From Ghana by Ernie Wolfe. Starting in the mid-80s small traveling cinemas consisting of a TV, a VCR, a generator, and copies of whatever movies were popular at the time started to travel around Ghana, particularly to rural areas without an established cinema. For advertising, rather than use official printed posters these cinemas would each have their own unique, hand painted posters. Here are two examples:
The size of these images doesn't really sell the fascinating weirdness of this collection, but you get the idea.
FnordChan
Cyan said:
That's disappointing to hear. I adored Spin and recently picked up a copy of Axis that I haven't gotten around to just yet. Now I'm wondering if I should put it on the back burner for a bit longer.
I'm in a similar boat. For what it's worth, To Your Scattered Bodies Go, the first of his Riverworld novels, won the 1972 Hugo for best novel.
Meanwhile, I'm currently about halfway through Master and Commander, the first volume of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series, which chronicles life in the British navy during the Napoleonic era. This is my second go at the book, having gotten about this far previously before accidentally leaving my copy in a friend's car during a road trip and not seeing him again for a year and a half. Fortunately, I recently re-watched the movie Master and Commander and was encouraged to give the series another go.
A friend of mine who's a huge fan has assured me that, after the first couple of books, I'll have the hang of the nautical jargon being used. This is reassuring, as I occasionally glimpse at the illustration in the front identifying the sails of a ship and it still doesn't really help me keep up. That said, I'm thoroughly enjoying the book so far, even if I tend to reduce some passages of the book to "sailors do naval stuff". The characters of Aubrey and Maturin are terrific, the period detail (and, let me tell you, there's a lot of detail) is fascinating, and the depictions of ship to ship combat are thrilling. While I should probably reserve judgment until I'm finished, I'm already looking forward to having many more novels in the series to enjoy after this one.
Having stumbled across a copy at the local university library and stared at it in astonishment, I simply had to track down a copy of Extreme Cavnas: Hand Painted Movie Posters From Ghana by Ernie Wolfe. Starting in the mid-80s small traveling cinemas consisting of a TV, a VCR, a generator, and copies of whatever movies were popular at the time started to travel around Ghana, particularly to rural areas without an established cinema. For advertising, rather than use official printed posters these cinemas would each have their own unique, hand painted posters. Here are two examples:
The size of these images doesn't really sell the fascinating weirdness of this collection, but you get the idea.
FnordChan
sparky2112
Member
Musashi Wins! said:
I was sooooo pumped for this book, but it was something of a letdown. As is the case with Simmons of late, it's far too long, for one. Secondly, while the premise is interesting, I still don't see that there's much of a point to the whole story. I mean, it's like a structure to show how much research into Dickens Simmons did. And Dickens is in no way the main character; this is very much Wilkie Collins's book, and it's basically one very, very long study in unreliable narrators...
ItAintEasyBeinCheesy
it's 4th of July in my asshole
If anyone else has read the Assasins Quest books that bird on the cover is the Fool.
Just finished:
Listened to this on audio book. Maybe it was the quality of the narrator's 'acting', but parts of this books evoked feelings in me that a book rarely has, like
. However, I felt there came a point where maybe the author was running out of steam and he just wanted to end it? The ending seems..unlikely..to me, which is it at odds with so much of the rest of the book in terms of believability. I get the impression he really didn't know where he was going with this in advance, and he just needed to end it somehow, and this is how he did it. I was slightly dissatisfied with that. Still though, really good book.
Last week I finished:
Cool book. Abrupt ending, but enjoyable.
Currently:
Change of pace Will be finishing this shortly, so looking for my next..will be combing back through this thread again for candidates
Listened to this on audio book. Maybe it was the quality of the narrator's 'acting', but parts of this books evoked feelings in me that a book rarely has, like
the part in the house with the cellar...i really wanted to turn it off there, it was quite disturbing
Last week I finished:
Cool book. Abrupt ending, but enjoyable.
Currently:
Change of pace
Will be finishing this shortly, so looking for my next..will be combing back through this thread again for candidates SundaySounds
Banned
Benjillion said:I need to start reading Vagabond
'Bout half way done with the series. Great stuff!
Thanks for the recommendation.
Finished this about a week ago. I really liked it, but I've got a thing for detective stories. It's more or less standard affair when coming to the genre, but it was one of the firsts by the masters. If you're into detective stories you can't go wrong with it, and it's a quick fast paced read.
I'm about 70 pages into this one now and I'm really liking it. The main character seems to be more real, has some flaws unlike the main character in The Maltese Falcon. It also seems to be a bit deeper and spread out over a longer period of time giving it a more of an epic feeling.
The Maltese Falcon is a burger, The Long Goodbye is a steak.
Wraith said:
Yes, as I grew older I started to develop a distaste for the "cheap, feel-good personal-revenge, sensationalist-pleasing" stories like "The Count of Monte Cristo".
The book is not about revolting against an establishment that allows injustice in the first place. It is about taking revenge on individuals that manipulate the system and only by becoming richer and more powerful than them through some highly unlikely fairy tale events.
As I grew older the cause no longer sounded noble to me and I felt embarrassed that I used to fantasize being the hero of this story (and started to fantasize being the hero of another book: "Gadfly")
Price Dalton
Member
Incredible book. A bit dense, but the subject requires it. Taubes painstakingly examines the research backing up most conventional dietary wisdom in this country and finds it completely lacking.
A must read for anyone interested in nutrition. Hell, a must read for anyone who eats on a regular basis.
crowphoenix
Banned
Just finished Slaughterhouse-Five. Really good book. I'm glad that Gaf recommended it to me. I'm a little confused with the ending, but hopefully, that will become muddled in time.
AndresON777
shooting blanks
Reading this for like the 5th time, I love this book
Gadfly said:
Nothing wrong with a pointless fun book every so often. I don't think Dumas was trying to fight any authority in this book and there's nothing wrong with that. Besides, I don't think we're supposed to idolize the urge for revenge -
even the main character doubts that it's justified by the end of the book.
The Illustrated Sherlock Holmes Treasury:
It took me FOREVER to find an image of the book that was the same edition as the one I'm reading - from 1976.
It doesn't contain EVERY SINGLE Sherlock Holmes work, but it's benefits far, FAR outweigh that fact:
- The book is a Facsimile of the original stories, as published in Strand Magazine
- This means that the stories are in their original two-column format, with the original title page, etc., AND...
- ALL the original illustrations by Sidney Paget are intact!
It's AMAZING, and is soooo much better than reading the stories in plain novel format. Plus, the book itself is quite classy.
It took me FOREVER to find an image of the book that was the same edition as the one I'm reading - from 1976.
It doesn't contain EVERY SINGLE Sherlock Holmes work, but it's benefits far, FAR outweigh that fact:
- The book is a Facsimile of the original stories, as published in Strand Magazine
- This means that the stories are in their original two-column format, with the original title page, etc., AND...
- ALL the original illustrations by Sidney Paget are intact!
It's AMAZING, and is soooo much better than reading the stories in plain novel format. Plus, the book itself is quite classy.
bengraven
Member
GDJustin said:The Illustrated Sherlock Holmes Treasury:
It took me FOREVER to find an image of the book that was the same edition as the one I'm reading - from 1976.
It doesn't contain EVERY SINGLE Sherlock Holmes work, but it's benefits far, FAR outweigh that fact:
- The book is a Facsimile of the original stories, as published in Strand Magazine
- This means that the stories are in their original two-column format, with the original title page, etc., AND...
- ALL the original illustrations by Sidney Paget are intact!
It's AMAZING, and is soooo much better than reading the stories in plain novel format. Plus, the book itself is quite classy.
I have a paperback edition printed by, I believe, Barnes and Nobles from a few years back. I had a hard time getting into the stories when I was a teenager, but somehow the illustrations absorb you into the atmosphere and make the reading more entertaining.